A few days before, I went to Pushkar with my family in my car. There we stayed in a beautiful cottage type hotel where there were lots of greenery and natural beauty. While returning, my wife asked the gardener for some branches of a few trees. She wanted to plant those at our house. We brought those branches all the way from Pushkar to Gurgaon, then kept them in salted water in enough sunlight for 2-3days. In the meantime bought some pots with fertilized soil and one fine morning put those branches one by one in the pot. Actually there were three saplings. One was Indian Rose, and rest two were of two different colored China rose, one light saffron colored and another cherry red. Unfortunately the pot where we planted the rose sapling was broken and it didn’t show any sign to live in our place. Slowly it lost its green and died. Somehow, I believe it didn’t like our place. Then we were left with two very sensitive, tender saplings of China rose. Both of them were losing their hope to stay alive.

It became my routine, everyday morning, I wake up, then spend some good time with those dying plants, water them, touch their yellowish leaves and get ready for my office. It continued for more than one week. Slowly they were dying and I could not do anything. They were losing their leaves very fast.

It was a Sunday morning, I still remember, I woke up, went to the balcony where I have kept them, sat beside them with a mug of fresh water, surprisingly saw the leaves were looking a bit firm, not like dying till yesterday. I was very happy then. It was really a great news to see them finally they got back their strength to live. The very next day found the leave, which was trying to grow, turned yellow, pale and fell down. I spent some more time with that plant that day. Another plant was ok. It was also not in very good health but somehow retained its strength. This continued another week and to my surprise and valuing my hope both the plants became strong enough to hold the soil, stay firm and started growing, showed all good signs to come out of coma. I was very happy to see those two brothers grow, live their life in two small pots.

Now compare this with our own life. We see our kids (though I don’t have any till date). It is like seeing your own self growing infront of you. The seed you planted is slowly, systematically taking a shape, sometime fighting with wounds, illness etc but never giving up the hope to stay alive and you are also not letting him to think like that.

Having a kid is not an easy job. It’s the woman who carries baby in her womb for long nine months withstanding lots of pain, trauma and then the Labor Day pain. After giving birth, direct pain for another one month and then another struggle, nourishing, caring a lump of alive flesh to live, understanding its needs in time and provide that accordingly. It is never an easy job but after seeing that china rose grow, get back its life, seeing its tenacity to live in this earth, somehow I have started feeling the urge of seeing my own self growing infront of me.

It is strange and a bit weird too seeing myself spending time in writing a blog on this rather than discussing the same at my home, with my better half but one thing is clear, blogging is not sending a message to someone, it is kind of expressing yourself and in that way I am not wrong. Life is not a MS Excel sheet where you write the formula and get a desired result. It is actually a refined battle, where a single bullet can cause more harm than a missile.

Machhimar is a name of a place near the western coast line of Mumbai, near the great known palace of Shahrukh Khan and a few kilometers before that great Sea-link bridge. It’s actually a big slum area where mostly fishermen live with their fishing boats and nets. Long before when even whole part of Mumbai was not integrated, from then people from various parts of India, some from presently Pakistan came and started fishing in the sea. They sail in the evening and sometime even go for a few weeks. They get married in their own society and produce children. Year after year, decade after decade and son after dad, it’s a heredity business. Catch fishes from the sea, and sell them to local vendors. Vendors buy fishes according to market demand and their strategy to maintain the price. Sometime some people don’t return. They vanish in the depth of sea. Their wife, families wait for them for a few months and then get married with someone else or die without being cared by any of her known.

Sometime some of their children ranks good in board exam and defeating the poverty continue to get higher education and earn money. Then either they shift to some other place to stay or just simply leave their parents to keep their head high in the status oriented society.

They got another reason to smile, a newest way of earning some money. While Ajmal Kasab came in India and attacked the great Taj Mahal hotel, Victoria Terminus and killed three police officers to make headline in paper in almost all the world famous dailies, all the newspapers and information agencies dragged their asses to find out the way of their entering in to Mumbai, where life never stops, dreaming gets bigger and better turnover every day, every moment. Machhimar was the place, from where they entered in the city. They studied a lot on their possible gateway to India and made plan to reach through that place. They had two reasons to choose the place as their entry point. One, people are more into earning their daily bread than noticing anything else and two, people watch cricket here. There was a cricket match of India when they stepped in the land of the city of dream, largest democracy at large.

Irfaan, a old man with rug like veins all over his hand and legs, tried to understand who the person was but failed, he made a sound in the darkness of Machhimar and asked who it was, someone of them replied harshly and told him to shut up. It happens when rich men walks in the slum area, they expect those starved hard working people to keep their mouth shut, if they had the power of making everything automated, they would have kicked these people out of the world also. Abdul was walking infront of his four by four feet room as his daughter was changing dress and they had only that space to live with. He also heard the sound of some people’s walk but he thought concentrating on his biri would be better option than concentrating on those studs.

Slowly the team came inside the land of India and got started with their plan to attack on our pride. Ajmal Kasab was hanged till death a year before after long legal trial and Machhimar got a tourist spot attention among people from various countries. People from different countries and obviously ever curious India started gathering in the place to give an alternative income source to the children and young people out there, they guide the visitors and show the place where those intruders came inside and earn ten to twenty rupees. Irfaan, became topic of amateur novice photographer’s with his camera friendly rug looking veins all through sculptured body and typical brown colored country cigar, locally known as biri. Initially he felt bad for the reasons behind becoming famous for an odd and painful reason, but slowly he started enjoying flashlight and the local people started earning a few bucks…